Cavaliers hope to keep lacrosse season alive

When the Virginia men’s lacrosse team takes the field today at noon against Johns Hopkins in the NCAA tournament quarterfinals, the Cavaliers will have a very simple objective.

“We don’t want this season to ever end,” said Virginia sophomore Adam Ghitelman. “That’s our motivation.”

If the top-seeded Wahoos are to make it to next weekend’s Final Four in Foxborough, Mass., and continue their quest for a fifth NCAA title, they’ll need to play as well as they did last weekend against Villanova.

In that game, they looked as in sync as they had all season.

The Cavaliers’ offense took quality shots and capitalized — to the tune of nine first-quarter goals. On defense, the Cavs didn’t surrender a goal until the fourth quarter.

But Hopkins, which has won the second-most NCAA championships in college lacrosse history, isn’t Villanova.

During the regular season, Virginia just barely escaped with a 16-15 win over the Blue Jays.

“Hopkins is not prepared to go out and concede anything to us,” said Virginia coach Dom Starsia, whose team would play Syracuse in the semifinals if it can get by Hopkins. “We’re going to have to go out and make it happen.

“We have a little confidence in playing these guys, but we’re still going to need to make the plays on the field and I think our kids understand that fully.”

In the March 22 meeting, Virginia jumped out to a 12-8 halftime lead but was outscored 7-2 in the third quarter.

“We came out on fire and had a lot of energy to start the game,” recalled Virginia senior Danny Glading, “but then they were able to score and get back in the game on a lot of broken plays.

“We need to be able to control the middle of the field the whole game.”

Starsia agreed. The combination of winning faceoffs and groundballs will be paramount, he said. “If we can do that, then we have a chance to dictate the tempo,” he noted.

Hopkins (10-4) advanced to today’s quarters with an overtime win over Brown, courtesy of Brian Christopher’s game-winning goal. Christopher and attackman Chris Boland have each scored 28 goals, second on the team.

Boland had six goals in the first game against the Cavaliers. Attackman Kyle Wharton leads the way with 33 goals.

“We have to handle their offense and play really good defense this time around,” Ghitelman said. “We gave up a few too many goals last time — a few too many close for comfort.”

Junior defender Ken Clausen said Virginia will need to be ready for just about anything.

“Having played them and knowing the matchups makes you a little more comfortable,” he said, “but I think everyone knows that Hopkins is a team that really shows their colors in the postseason, regardless of how they’ve done in the regular season.

“We know it’s going to be a lot different game than earlier in the year.”

Ground balls

Dom Starsia needs one win to become the fourth Division I head coach to win 300 games in a career. … The two schools rank 1-2 in most playoff appearances — Johns Hopkins (38) and Virginia (32). … This year’s Virginia’s senior class has won 57 games — the most in school history. … UVa’s seniors are missing today’s graduation for the game. They will have their graduation in a special ceremony Monday afternoon. … Danny Glading has become the second player in UVa history (Kevin Pehlke) and the sixth in ACC history with 100 goals and 100 assists in a career.